Quotes From "1Q84" By Haruki Murakami

I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself. Haruki Murakami

Only by learning the truth–whatever that truth might be–could people be given the right kind of power. Haruki Murakami

Wasn't it better if they kept this desire to see each other hidden within them, and never actually got together? That way, there would always be hope in their hearts. That hope would be a small, yet vital flame that warmed them to their core-- a tiny flame to cup one's hands around and protect from the wind, a flame that the violent winds of reality might easily extinguish. Haruki Murakami

Or maybe that’s what it’s all about: this religion’s substance is its lack of substance. In McLuhanesque terms, the medium is the message. Some people might find that cool.”“ Mc Luhanesque?”“ Hey, look, even I read a book now and then, ” Ayumi protested. “McLuhan was ahead of his time. He was so popular for a while that people tend not to take him seriously, but what he had to say was right.”“ In other words, the package itself is the contents. Is that it?”“ Exactly. The characteristics of the package determine the nature of the contents, not the other way around. . Haruki Murakami

People lose fifty million skin cells every day. The cells get scraped off and turn into invisible dust, and disappear into the air. Maybe we are nothing but skin cells as far as the world is concerned. Haruki Murakami

Don’t you see? You and he might never cross paths again. Of course, a chance meeting could occur, and I hope it happens. I really do, for your sake. But realistically speaking, you have to see there’s a huge possibility you’ll never be able to meet him again. And even if you do meet, he might already be married to somebody else. He might have two kids. Isn’t that so? And in that case, you may have to live the rest of your life alone, never being joined with the one person you love in all the world. Don’t you find that scary? . Haruki Murakami

For some reason all the middle-aged women he knew were very efficient. Haruki Murakami

This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: 'At the time, no one knew what was coming. Haruki Murakami

I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning. Haruki Murakami

No, I don't want your money. The world moves less by money than by what you owe people and what they owe you. I don't like to owe anybody anything, so I keep to myself as much on the lending side as I can. Haruki Murakami

There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person's heart. Haruki Murakami

It's not me but the world that's deranged. Haruki Murakami

It's just that you're about to do something out of the ordinary. And after you do something like that, the everyday look of things might seem to change a little. Things may look different to you than they did before. But don't let appearances fool you. There's always only one reality. Haruki Murakami

When you prick a person with a needle, red blood comes out- that's the real world. Haruki Murakami

Sex with a married woman ten years his senior was stress free and fulfilling, because it couldn't lead to anything Haruki Murakami

Most of the psychological differences between men and women seem to come from differences in their reproductive system Haruki Murakami

If there's any guy crazy enough to attack me, I'm going to show him the end of the world -- close up. I'm going to let him see the kingdom come with his own eyes. I'm going to send him straight to the southern hemisphere and let the ashes of death rain all over him and the kangaroos and the wallabies. Haruki Murakami

What I want is for the two of us to meet somewhere by chance one day, like, passing on the street, or getting on the same bus. Haruki Murakami

A certain something, he felt, had managed to work its way in through a tiny opening and was trying to fill a blank space inside him. The void was not one that she had made. It had always been there inside him. She had merely managed to shine a special light on it. Haruki Murakami

At some point the future becomes reality. And then it quickly becomes the past. Haruki Murakami

You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath. Haruki Murakami

It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words. Haruki Murakami

But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words. Haruki Murakami

Being alive, if you had to define it, meant emitting a variety of smells Haruki Murakami

Once you pass a certain age, life becomes noting more than a process of continual loss. Things that are important to your life begin to slip out of your grasp, one after another, like a comb losing teeth. And the only things that come to take their place are worthless imitations. Your physical strength, your hopes, your dreams, your ideals, your convictions, all meaning, or, then again, the people you love: one by one, they fade away. Some announce their departure before they leave, while others just disappear all of a sudden without warning one day. And once you lose them you can never get them back. Your search for replacement never goes well. It’s all very painful- as painful as actually being cut with a knife. Haruki Murakami

Guns are like cars: you can trust a good used one better than one that's brand new. Haruki Murakami

For a ten-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl to become good friends was not easy under any circumstances. Indeed, it might be one of the most difficult accomplishments in the world. Haruki Murakami

The third dream was hard to put into words. It was a rambling, incoherent dream without any setting. All that was there was a feeling of being in motion. Aomame was ceaselessly moving through time and space It didn't matter when or where this was All that mattered was this movement. Everything was fluid, and a specific meaning was born of that fluidity. But as she gave herself up to it, she found her body growing transparent. She could see through her hands to the other side. Her bones, organs, and womb became visible. At this rate she might very well no longer exist. After she could no longer see herself, Aomame wondered what could possibly come then. She had no answer. Haruki Murakami

The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don't want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories. Haruki Murakami

The role of a story was, in the broadest terms, to transpose a single problem into another form.... It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell. Haruki Murakami

But still, " Ayumi said, "it seems to me that this world has a serious shortage of both logic and kindness."" You may be right, " Aomame said, "But it's too late to trade it in for another one. Haruki Murakami

Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you. Haruki Murakami

I'm all alone, but I'm not lonely. Haruki Murakami

The two of them on top of the freezing slide, wordlessly holding hands. Once again they were a ten-year-old boy and girl. A lonely boy, and a lonely girl. A classroom, just after school let out, at the beginning of winter. They had neither the power nor the knowledge to know what they should offer to each other, what they should be seeking. They had never, ever, been truly loved, or truly loved someone else. They had never held anyone, never been held. They had not idea, either, where this action would take them. What they entered then was a doorless room. They couldn't get out, nor could anyone else come in. The two of them didn't know it at the time, but this was the only truly complete place in the entire world. Totally isolated, yet the one place not tainted with loneliness. Haruki Murakami

It's not so easy for people to end their own lives. It's not like in the movies. There, they do it like nothing, no pain, and it's all over, they're dead. The reality is not like that. You lie in bed for ten years with the piss oozing out of you. Haruki Murakami

All's well that ends well.'' Assuming there's an end somewhere, ' Aomame said. Tamaru formed some short creases near his mouth that were faintly reminiscent of a smile. 'There has to be an end somewhere. It's just that nothing's labeled "This is the end." Is the top rung of a ladder labeled "This is the last rung. Please don't step higher than this'?" Aomame shook her head.' It's the same thing, ' Tamaru said. Aomame said, 'If you use common sense and keep your eyes open, it becomes clear enough where the end is.' Tamaru nodded. 'And even if it doesn't' -- he made a falling gesture with his finger -- 'the end is right there. . Haruki Murakami

As I mentioned briefly on the phone, the best thing about the Air Chrysalis is that it's not an imitation of anyone. It has absolutely none of the usual new writer's sense of 'I want to be another so-and-so'. the syle, for sure, is rough, and the writing is clumsy. She even gets the title wrong: she's confusing 'chrysalis' and 'cocoon'. You could pick it apart completely if you wanted to. But the story itself has real power: it draws you in. the overall plots is a fantasy, but the descriptive details is incredibly real. The balance between the two is excellent. I don't know if words like 'originality' or Inevitability' fit here, and I suppose I might agree if someone insisted it's not at that level, but finally, after you work your way through the thing, with all its faults, it leaves a real impression- it gets to you in some strange, inexplicable way that may be a little disturbing. Haruki Murakami